was made in manhattan. unless my selections are unusual, i'd suggest if we want the team to truly represent america, we let them wear clothing like the rest of us. made all over the global economy. for any who disagree, they can toss their ipads in the fire that senator reid wishes to set for the clothing. that's "hardball" for now. "politicsnation" with al sharpton starts right now. . welcome to "politicsnation." i'm al sharpton. tonight's lead, the questions continue for mitt romney. late today mr. romney gave interviews to five different networks including nbc in an effort to diffuse the controversy over bain capital. for years romney has been saying he left bain in 1999 and that he couldn't be blamed for the thousands of workers laid off by bain in the years after that. his 2011 financial report says

quote, he retired from bain capital on february 11th, 1999. quote, since february 11, 1999, romney has not had an active role with any bain capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any bain capital entity in any way. romney signed this document personally. but today new information is emerging that tells a very different story. building on what we learned earlier this week, documents given to a massachusetts commission in 2002 show romney still had full ownership in at least six bain entities while he was in utah managing the olympics. and the commission found romney was still serving on the boards of companies that had bain ownership stakes in staples,

marriott, and life like. all this paper work shows romney still owned bain three years after he says he retired from the company. now, his opponent in 2002's governor race shannen o'brien hammered him on exactly this point. >> the fact is you are still signing documents as ceo of the company while you were away. and as a matter of fact, in the summer of 2001 when you were leaving the olympics, you actually made a statement in the paper that in the summer of 2001 you were finally relinquishing 100% control of your position within bain. >> romney's answer then was the same as his answer now. deny everything. >> i was out in utah full-time. i had no responsibility for management at bain capital. i was not running bain capital and therefore am not responsible for the actions of bain capital when i left. >> now, again, all this matters

because romney has been trying to duck responsibility for the thousands of people who were laid off by bain capital during those years. these are the people whose voices we're hearing in tv ads released by the obama campaign. >> it was like going to war every single day. they were starting to try to figure out ways. >> we started having quality issues at that plant. >> they weren't concerned about your health. it was like working in the sweat shops of the '30s. >> like a vampire. he came in and sucked the life out of us. >> they made as much money off it as they could, and they closed it down and filed for bankruptcy without concern for the families of the communities. >> bain capital was the majority owner. they hired the management. mitt romney was deeply involved in the influence that he exercised over these companies. >> now, these voices are why mr.

romney's time at bain matter. and we need to get to the answers. joining me now is chris hayes, host of "up with chris hayes" here on msnbc and author of "twilight of the elites." and david bernstein for "the boston phoenix" who's covered romney for a long time. he broke this story back in 2007 when he wrote that romney was still listed as bain's owner long after he supposedly left the company. thank you both for joining me, first of all. >> thank you. >> david, let me start with you. how can romney own a company but not have any responsibility for it? is that possible? >> sure, it's possible. and he does say that. what's been kind of odd is that he and bain are both now saying he totally split ties in

february of 1999 and that it was just paper work and the complexity of the corporate structure and suddenness of him leaving is why it doesn't appear that way on paper for another two and a half to three years. and that's clearly not true. as a matter of fact, and this was referenced that that clip you shows of shannen o'brien in that debate, but in august of 2001 two and a half years after he left for utah, he held a press conference. mitt romney held a press conference to announce the decision he was going to cut ties with bain and leave the company, not come back to the company after the olympics. that was two and a half years after he left. >> so he held a press conference two and a half years after the date they're saying that he left to announce he was finally leaving. >> yes. to say that he was cutting ties and would become a passive investor. and that was sort of finalized by the following year.

but it was put in motion at that time. so there's still big questions about how much was he involved, did they consult with him, ask him. did he have authority to do things he could have done? could he have called up and stopped deals from going through? he certainly was -- i don't think there's any dispute on this fact that you can have -- that he was the owner, ceo, controller and was essentially on sort of an informally defined leave to come back when he wanted to. >> now, chris, you've been following this closely as well. whether or not he had operational hands-on management or not, we don't know. but we do know he signed the s.e.c. filings. and you don't sign the s.e.c. filings in advance two or three years. so he was actively every year signing new filings. >> yeah, exactly. every year they filed. he's vouching to regulators

saying i'm ceo of this company. what's bizarre to me is they find themselves where he seems to be simultaneously away from the company and running the company two two different groups. they're telling the federal government he's still the ceo. all of this has been done so that he has some plausible deniability in this deal with gst steel who fired a lot of folks and sent the jobs over. what gst steel did wasn't that different from anything bain did in the years when romney was actually running bain. i mean, bain was doing what bain was doing which was in some cases bankrupting companies and in other cases outsourcing jobs because that's what private equity companies do. he was doing that the whole way through. they're now caught in this trap by making this distinction what bain did before 1999 and after. >> it was in effect doing the same things. >> yeah.

if you look at the impact plant which has been featuring ads with any opponent against mitt romney. that was happening while he was there. outsourcing investments were happening while he was actually there. bain capital was there to use leverage to make a lot of money for its share holds and managers. wherever the chips fell in that process, that's what they were doing. that was the m.o. the entire time. it's ridiculous for him to create this distinction between bad bain activities in 1999 to 2002 and good activities before that. >> he needs the distinction because he's trying to say he was not involved in laying off workers. he's not involved in outsourcing. and he says i ought to be judged with my business experience. not governor of massachusetts about business. when we started looking, he started doing a political moonwalk. david bernstein, you wrote in

2007 that although he claimed to have severed ties with bain, s.e.c. documents showed romney retained 100% operational ownership of the company and subsidiaries through 2001. and it was a paper formality. the fact is he's signing this to the federal government and there are things that have gone on with the company. isn't he signing as the ceo and in effect to the federal government representing that he, in fact, is responsible as ceo and whether he had direct management or not, he's the guy signing the report. >> yeah. i mean, you would think so. and there are certainly situation where is you can claim to be the owner but not necessarily directly involved in some of the management, but he was also ceo and president. one thing i would say also is -- and i take chris' point,ic he's

correct about these outsourcing issues. it doesn't really matter where you draw the line. i think that the problem that has romney and his team trying to draw that distinction is that there are other things likely to be brought into the conversation. some of which in that article if i can just brag about my article. >> knock yourself out. >> but for instance, there's a deal with a company called ddi which ended up being investigated by as part of an investigation that lehman brothers paid over a billion dollars to settle with having to do with allegedly bain people putting pressure on one side of the lehman company to jack up their rating on ddi which lehman was also handling the banking for the ipo and one of those kinds of deals. romney's name and signature are

on those documents of selling bain shares in that. but he has also maintained i had nothing to do with that because that took place while i was gone even though his name is on it. and so on. and things can be conflict of interest issues and so forth could come up. and are likely to come up as this goes along. he'd like to draw this distinction now before those become issues. >> chris, i mean, clearly there's a reason for him to try and distance himself. but again, i repeat the reason it's important, we're talking about people's jobs. we're talking about a man that wants to be president of the united states when he's outsourcing. and talking about a man who has been dealing in the cayman islands and bermuda with his own money. he's the one that told us judge me by my business experience. he sent us to bain. we would have gladly asked him how as governor massachusetts came in last in job creation.

but he guided us to bain. now we're there. it's too much pain in bain for him. >> it's always been, i think, a dubious argument to say that running a private equity company gives you the tools you need to create jobs from the perspective of the federal government. the enterprises are so different in so many ways. the values, the stake holders, who you listen to, who is dependent -- who you are dependent upon. they're just such different enterprises. it's a dubious argument. it also opened him up to -- this to the airliny of this. this is the thing that -- this has been every campaign he's run, this is what they've attacked him on. this is every time he's run for office. this is -- i mean, it's so funny to see the attacks played in the gubernatorial race. successful. >> so surprised. i've got to let it go there. thank you for joining me tonight. david, let me tell you, have a great weekend. get on a treadmill, get your

tea, and you watch "up with chris hayes" on saturdays and sundays from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. that's what i do. >> you got it. we have news ahead. mitt romney responds for the first time to the bain controversy tonight. plus the strategy behind all the bain attacks leads to one big question. why is he hiding his tax returns? and ten years ago today, something big happened under george w. bush. and we haven't looked back since. but it's not an event to celebrate. you're watching "politicsnation" on msnbc. [ male announcer ] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles,

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tonight mitt romney responds to the fire storm about his time as bain capital. and there's news about mr. romney's tax returns. it's all coming up. stay with us. brain freeze cake donettes rolling hot dogs bag of ice anti-freeze wash and dry diesel self-serve fix a flat jumper cables 5% cashback signup for 5% cashback at gas stations through september. it pays to discover. ♪ home of the brave. ♪ it's where fear goes unwelcomed... ♪ and certain men... find a way to rise above. this is the land of giants. ♪ guts. glory. ram.

i pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. i don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes. >> mitt romney's philosophy on taxes. of course there's a lot we don't know about romney's taxes because he's only released two years of his returns and the controversy over his time at bain is only adding to the confusion. it's why the obama campaign is

renewing its call for him to release his tax returns. >> walk through exactly when he did cut ties with bain capital. if the s.e.c. filings aren't accurate, then prove it. if he wasn't investing millions of dollars in shell corporations, tax havens, swiss bank accounts overseas to gain a tax advantage, then prove it. prove it by releasing your tax returns. >> this morning former president bill clinton also said romney needs to be more transparent. >> all your work life before you run for president is relevant. and i think that will be relevant. i mean, i'm a little surprised he only released a year's worth of tax returns. that kind of perplexed me. the voters can make up their own mind about whether they think it's a good thing to -- for a person who wants to be president to minimize his own tax liability by putting the money in overseas tax shelters.

>> now even republicans are starting to worry that his leadership at bain is backfiring. some are also calling for him to release more tax returns. at the very least, seeing romney's financial records would shed light on his oversea investments in places like bermuda, switzerland, and cayman islands. of course this lack of transparency isn't new for the romney campaign. back in 2002 when he was running for governor, a campaign aide responded to questions about his taxes during those missing bain years by saying quote, you're just going to have to take my word for it. joining me now is david k. johnston. he's a columnist for reuters and author of the book "perfectly legal: the covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich and cheat everyone else."

and jonathan capehart, a writer for "the washington post" and an msnbc contributor. thank you both for being here tonight. >> thanks. >> thank you. >> david, let me start with you. should voters just take romney's word that he hasn't hidden money in offshore tax shelters? >> no. and why should voters be treated different than john mccain? romney was one of the vice presidential nominees. and john mccain's people got to vet his tax returns back to 1984 which is what i've been calling on romney to release. if he's willing to give them to john mccain who passed on him, by the way, for sarah palin which does raise the question of was there something mccain saw in those tax returns, yes i think the american people should see those returns. >> now, jonathan, it is interesting that when you look at the fact that presidential

candidates, president obama released 12 years. george w. bush eight years. george romney, mitt romney's father when he ran for president released 12 years. mitt romney only two years. so it's not like this is not something that isn't done. even in primaries all that have run had to release returns and go through the questions there were. >> right. >> so the question here of transparency and of whether or not as former president clinton raised did you use foreign tax places -- havens to hide the taxes. >> well, rev, what you left out in that litany of the presidents and presidential candidates who've released their tax returns, yes george romney, are m romney's father when he ran in the 1968 race.

he set the precedent of returns. before him candidates would give out general views of where their tax liabilities and things. but george romney thought it was important to hand over 12 years of actual tax returns so that folks would know that quote, it wasn't a fluke. also to make sure people understood that he wasn't just showing off where the money came from. mitt romney is not following the lead set by his own father. and the second point here is the american people ought to know is where a candidate -- a potential president of the united states earns his money, how he maintains his family, and the idea that mitt romney thinks he can get away with one full year of tax returns. remember, the 2011 tax returns he's released are only estimates. that's why president clinton

said in the interview today that mitt romney has only released one year. it's not acceptable. >> now, let me ask you, david. what is the purpose of having these offshore accounts? are they set up because you heard mitt romney say he's paid all of the taxes that was owed not one dollar more. so are these offshore accounts legal but you're able to avoid taxes? i mean, what is the purpose of having them? >> well, there are offshore accounts which are legal and illegal. and there are accounts which allow you to avoid taxes and accounts that do not. at least some of his accounts are because american nonprofits investing in bain's investments and foreign investors go through a cayman islands company to avoid filing for the foreigners and paying taxes if they're nonprofits. and romney gets carried interest, a share of the profits from that. there are other disturbing

things. he set up a number of companies for a lighthouse in bermuda. he had a swiss bank account. it's perfectly reasonable to question, well, what else did you do during the years from 1984 until now to avoid taxes or delay them? >> now, jonathan, david corn of "mother jones" reports that bain under romney outsourced to china. let me read from the article. romney when he was in charge of bain invested heavily in chinese manufacturing company that depended on u.s. outsourcing for its profits. this runs contrary to what romney is saying and what he is campaigning on. >> yeah. there's something very important here. the reason why mitt romney gave these round robin interviews to five networks as you said at the top of the show, is because we need to go back to when the obama campaign started making these attacks on mitt romney

about outsourcing and about his tenure at bain capital. and the criticism the president in his campaign was getting for blaming venture capital. remember, you had new york mayor cory booker criticizing. and i would submit that the reason why mitt romney is giving those interviews today, the reason why that story in the boston globe yesterday has gained so much traction is because the obama campaign basically through those attacks a couple months ago seeded the ground where that boston globe story yesterday made it sort of fundamental that mitt romney step forward and give some answers to those attacks in that boston globe story. mitt romney isn't answering the question. >> well, i think you're right. i think it also -- if you recall, they said the administration was anti-private equity, even anti-capitalism.

now it looks like clearly it's about mitt romney's business dealings, not a whole broad stroke of the whole industry or a broad attack on capitalism. but david cay johnston, jonathan capehart, thank you for your time tonight. >> thanks. coming up, mitt romney breaks his silence on the avalanche of controversy surrounding his time at bain capital and he's making news on his tax returns. that's coming up. stay with us.

have you checked us out on facebook? the conversation is going all day long. today our fans were buzzing about mitt romney and bain capital. doug wonders why romney's so secretive about his past, the tax returns, bain records, when he left bain, and the computer hard drives he had destroyed. maybe destroyed. and vanessa says the s.e.c. paperwork is the blueberry pie all over romney's face. i couldn't agree more. we want to hear what you think about romney's bain record too. head over to facebook and search "politicsnation" and like us to join the conversation that keeps going long after the show ends.

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welcome back to "politicsnation." we've got a big birthday to celebrate today. bust out those party hats. cut yourself a slice of cake, because it's federal deficit's tenth birthday. that's right. on this day in 2002, the bush administration gave birth to a deficit. the first one in years. bush's policy helped the little deficit grow to this milestone age of ten. folks, who are we kidding? this isn't a day to celebrate. no wonder nobody's shown up to this party. he left with a $1.3 trillion deficit. he gave us massive tax breaks for the rich and two wars that were unpaid for.

failed policies caused this mess. a point president obama drove home today. >> we tried it. we tried it for most of the last decade. and what were the results? we turned record surpluses into record deficits. wages, incomes stagnated. job growth sluggish. now, if you tried something and it doesn't work, why would you try it again? why would we want to go back to that? >> well, who would want to go back to that? willard mitt romney does. apparently he's ready to celebrate for deficit birthday parties. his economic policies will be just bush's just updated. last night he attended a fund raiser thrown by dick cheney.

that dick cheney. the one that helped explode the deficit. at the event willard called cheney quite a man, quite a leader. he and george bush led all right. right off a cliff. joining me now is melissa harris-perry and ezra klein. melissa, why no party hat for today's tenth anniversary? where's the hat? >> you said nobody showed up, i was like i'm here. i like this point, because as soon as we say it's ten years old, then we remember that of course the obama presidency is only three and a half years old. for this deficit to lay at the feet of president obama, it would have to basically be in preschool.

but instead this is a school-age deficit. and that's because this deficit began under president bush. it has to do with tax policies. and it is those tax policies that romney is suggesting bringing back. >> slammed the gop talking tax policy. he slammed them for refusing to help the middle class, only the rich. take a listen. >> they basically want to give $5 trillion in new tax cuts mostly for the wealthy on top of the bush tax cuts. i don't think top-down economics works. i believe that we grow this economy from the middle out. from the bottom up. i believe the heart and soul of this country is making sure the working people can feel security in the middle class. and we're growing our middle

class. >> ezra, it is really about two differing opinions about how taxes ought to be brought into government or received. one saying trickle down, the other saying from the middle expand. >> sharply differing. and one thing that frustrates me about this conversation is we only have been talking about taxes. whatever you do on the tax side has an equal and opposite reaction on the spending side. take what mitt romney wants to do. he wants to pass trillions of tax cuts on top of that. tax cuts that are aggressive. that money comes from somewhere. it could come from the deficit. but vemplgly out of spending. where does the federal government spend? defense, security for the low income folks, and security for the elderly. now, romney said he will increase defense spending and put a floor on it above where it is now. so we're not going to be cutting there.

which means we're cutting spending on the poor and the elderly. because romney has said at least for the next ten years he's not going to cut spending on the elderly, we're cutting spending on the poor and lower middle class that benefits from these things. that by the way includes the affordable care act which takes a lot of money from taxes for the rich and moves it into subsidy to help lower income folks get health care. >> and that's the real point, melissa. >> i'd agree with ezra. and there's another area where government expenditures come from and that's jobs. cutting government often means cutting people's jobs. and what we know is -- >> well, government is too big. >> those government jobs, those good government jobs. we know who has those jobs. they are vastly, not predominantly, for people of color and for women. there are more women and people of color in those positions. talking about teachers, you're talking about a lot of women and often women of color. postal workers, firefighters. these jobs that are government

jobs either at the local level, state level, or federal government level that that's part of spending. you want people to be working. >> yeah. but let me ask you this, ezra. the president wants the rich to pay a little more. romney would give them a huge break. he'd give $725,716 average break to the top 1%. that's $5 trillion in new tax cuts. explain to me how romney will pay for this. >> he hasn't said and the truth is he probably can't. there's no way to get the money that would be sellable to get it. now, what he can do and what republicans sometimes do is say the magic of tax cut generated growth will generate so much new revenue it's going to pay for itself. it is -- now, there are reasonable points and very high

tax rates we are not at where those could kick in. we are nowhere near there. unless you're going gimmick economics or what george h.w. bush called voodoo economics -- >> smoke and mirrors. no way to establish how this is going to be paid for. >> no. on the economy side, we have a decade where the top 1% has been doing very well. not good years for the economy at all. if the only thing you needed to grow the economy was for rich to get richer, we'd see great economic growth. we're not. this is not an economic theory that's going to work either. you can't really appeal to that side in order to close your ref knew gap or in order to close your economic move. >> now, melissa, let me bring up another point the gop keeps running. they continue to say that spending exploded under president obama. when we go to the facts. it's not true. in clinton's first term, it grew

3.2%. in clinton's second term, it grew 3.9%. when bush came to office, it grew by 7.3%. it grew by 8.1% in bush's second term. but under president obama, it's grown just 1.4%. >> and in fact, i think many progressives and in fact i think some of the work that ezra's research has shown is that that's exactly part of the problem. we should be seeing greater spending, greater stimulus, and then in fact when we saw it get cut back is really after that 2010 midterm win by congressional republicans. so we were moving in the right direction. we were actually moving to a place where we were beginning to do enough stimulus spending to make a difference in the economy. 2010 happens, the republicans come in. they stand in the school house door refusing to do anything. really refusing to make laws at all. but certainly actually making things worse in terms of our economy by their refusal to do

the kind of spending necessary to kick start the economy. >> do you think, ezra, when the president said that he regretted he hadn't inspired the country more that we're going to see him really take this battle of the trickle down against the middle class broadening out. is that where he has to inspire americans to understand what this election is about? >> yes, that is where they're going to have to go now. that is where they're going to go now from what i understand from folks in the white house. phase one was getting people to understand who is mitt romney, what has his experience looked like. what has his past looked like. and phase two is saying this guy has an economic theory, has a set of policies you're not going to like. that are not the right direction. obviously the obama administration prefers to run on better jobs but in the absence of that what's going to happen now is they're going to turn to mitt romney's economic policies. say why has this guy who's done so well thinks the way for him

to get the economy back on track is for him to pay much less and someone on medicaid to lose benefits. >> thank you both for joining me this evening. both of you have a great weekend. and don't miss melissa harris-perry every saturday and sunday at 10:00 a.m. right here on msnbc. we have breaking news on bain coming up. mitt romney's don't recall defense in a brand new interview with nbc news. stay with us.

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this is rudy. who switched to aleve. and two pills for a day free of pain. ♪ [ female announcer ] and try aleve for relief from tough headaches. late today president obama gave a hard-hitting interview on mitt romney's shadow years at bain capital. the president called him out for taking no responsibility for bain layoffs during the years when he was still listed as the company's ceo and president. >> harry truman said the buck stops with you. now, my understanding is that mr. romney attested to the s.e.c. multiple times that he was the chairman, ceo, and president of bain capital. and i think most americans figure if you're the chairman, ceo, and president of a company

that you are responsible for what that company does. ultimately he's going to have to answer those questions. if he aspires to be president, one of the things you learn, you're ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operation. >> we'll have mitt romney's response next. hey. hey eddie. i brought your stuff. you don't have to do this. yes i do. i want you to keep this. it'd be weird. take care. you too.

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mitt romney has broken his silence about the controversy over his time at bain capital. how could he have left bain and at the same time still be the boss at bain? facing a fire storm, the campaign hastily arranged interviews with five media outlets late today. here's what he told nbc's peter alexander just minutes ago. >> you said that you retired from bain capital in february of 1999 but there are s.e.c. filings that list you as the chief executive, president, and managing director of bain in 2000 and 2001. so if you were officially the

boss in those years, why are you still responsible for bain capital's activities including the outsourcing of jobs at that time? >> in february of 1999 i left bain capital and left all management and authority and responsibility for the firm. i had no ongoing activity or involvement in the affairs of bain capital because i went out to run the olympics. if february of '99 i became the full-time chief executive officer of the olympic organizing committee. after that i had no work whatsoever with the bain capital people. no responsible or activity with the management at bain capital. and that's been documented every independent fact checker that's looked at it says you're absolutely right. and the president's campaign has been, i think, outrageous in making the kind of charges they have. i think the kinds of attacks are beneath the dignity of the presidency. i think the president needs to rein in his campaign and talk

about the real issues people care about. >> i want to clarify this then. after february of 1999, you never attended a single meeting for bain. a business meeting even by phone attended a meeting regarding bain or bain-controlled entities. >> you asked quite a few questions there. i didn't involve myself in any way with bain capital's enterprises after february of 1999. >> no participating in a single meeting? >> i don't recall a single meeting or participation in a decision. i left the firm. i was full-time running the olympics in 2002. and in the years leading up to it. >> we ask because the salt brake tribune in 2001 that you said i now decided i'm officially separated from bain capital. but you insist there was nothing at that time. >> i had no management responsibility or activity within bain capital. now, as an owner i could have

come back. you have the ownership potential. i could have gone back and taken over, but i didn't. i left and went on to run the olympic games. that's where i spent all 34i time. the management of the firm was taken over by the 18 or so partners that were there. >> joining me now is cynthia tucker pulitzer prize winning syndicated columnist. and back with us david bernstein, political reporter for "the boston phoenix" who first broke this bain story. thank you both for joining me. >> thank you. >> david, mr. romney says he left bain capital in 1999. that's that. end of story he says. what's your analysis? >> well, he now seems to be saying yes, i did stay on technically as the owner and

technically as the ceo and president and managing director. but i didn't have anything to do with anything. he seems to be choosing words carefully about what he had nothing to do with. he says he doesn't recall having any meetings, meetings by phone. you know, people are going to have to judge this for themselves. it seems he's admitting the fact she was technically the guy who was in charge of the company for that period of time. and we know he wasn't directly involved day to day. there's no disputing that. the question is whether he had responsibility, whether he had any activity back and forth. and right now what we have is his word for it. you know, as you've discussed many times, sometimes his word is not 100% reliable. so people are going to have to

look further into it. there's going to be questions about specific things that went on where he's going to have to answer specifically about did he know about this. could you have stopped this if you wanted to. >> isn't that really the point? did you know about the outsourcing? did you know about the job layoffs? and could you have done something about it and looked into it? all the other stuff is really immaterial. let me ask you something, cynthia. he said in this interview that we just saw on nbc that he had nothing to do with personnel or anything. yet romney said he left bain '99. but back in that time, salt lake herald tribune reported in '99, quote. i'm reading from their story in '99. romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with bain. providing input on investment

and key personnel decisions. but he will leave running day-to-day operations to bain's executive committee. so this report in '99 directly conflicts what he just said. >> well, that's not the only time that there was a conflict. when he ran for governor of massachusetts to establish residency, he also said that he came back for business meetings. what other business did he have? he remained the owner of bain company. you mean to tell me as the sole owner, he left all the major decisions to somebody else? i have a hard time believing that. >> well, david, you've been covering willard mitt romney for a long time. if he came back to massachusetts for a business meeting, what other business could he have had? he owned bain capital. one of the owners. he said he came back.

that helped him to accomplish residency to run. was he lying then or is he lying now? >> well, one of the things is he's got so much business going on in so many different entities just within bain as well as any other investments he magt have had personally, it's hard to say. plus he did come back to meet with david dell sandro to say to him as has been reported in the past to say to him i need you to re-up your olympic sponsorship. if i lose these sponsors, my political career is going to be dead. >> would that qualify residency though? >> i don't know about that. he said at that time he did come back for staples meetings and others like that. we just don't know. he won't outline those. >> we're going to have to leave it there. we're out of time. but clearly he's got a lot of